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30 May 2018

365 notebooks: 4 set in A5 plain paper

As a notebook and fountain pen junkie, I am constantly on the lookout for notebooks that may be fountain pen friendly. Especially now that I go through journals at the rate of knots! I saw these 365 Notebooks on the Cult Pens website when I was having a casual browse and decided to give them a go. They're not cheap - they are £27.99 for a set of four in the colours of grey, brown, blue and pink - with these colours representing the seasons of Japan.

Each notebook has 100 sheets, with the sheets possessing an almost tracing paper-like quality. As a result, each notebook is lightweight and thin. The paper is shiny on one side and matte on the other and how they fare with a fountain pen can be seen later in this blog post.

The notebooks come with a guide than can be slipped under each page - with one side lined and the other one grid. So in a way, you have the best of three worlds: the potential to use plain, ruled or squared paper.

Apologies for the slight blue tinge in the lighting of the next few photos! The first photo is of my fine-nibbed Pilot Metropolitan on the shiny side of the paper. There is considerable feathering, bleeding and showthrough. The three worst qualities paper can possess! However, when you write on the matte side, the feathering isn't as bad. The showthrough is present regardless of which side of the paper you use so even though this notebook possesses 100 pages, you can only use 50 if you decide to choose fountain pen as your writing tool of choice.

And this is how fountain pen looks on the matte side. Much less feathering!

Overall, if you're a fountain pen user, I would stay away from these notebooks. They look nice but are not worth the price tag if you use an inky pen. Rhodia, Clairefontaine and Oxford notebooks would be a far better options in that regard. I suppose they could be passable as a travel journal if you use one side for writing on and the other side for sticking in a momentos or souvenirs.